This spinach salad speaks to all the wonderful autumnal flavors of the Pacific Northwest. The new crop of bronzed Bosc pears is piled high at the farmers' market; the hazelnuts have been harvested, shelled, and bagged for sale; and the cranberries arrive from the Long Beach, Washington, coastal bogs.

A sandwich cookie takes more effort than a drop cookie, because you have to make both cookies and filling. In addition, this recipe involves a chilling step and requires the cookies to be double-panned. But the results are worth it for the best-textured peanut butter cookie with the creamiest peanut filling.

My dad loved mushrooms, and he always ordered veal Marsala when we went out to restaurants. My mom didn't buy veal very often, so she adapted this recipe for chicken and made it on special occasions. He was also very fond of white Burgundy wine, which makes a wonderful accompaniment to this dish.

Red flannel hash is just corned beef hash with the addition of beets. It’s traditionally made in New England for breakfast, with leftovers from a boiled dinner the night before, and gets its name from the somewhat obvious similarity of its colors to red flannel plaid cloth.

Prolific cookbook author James McNair has been chief judge of Sutter Home Winery's burger cook-off since it began in Napa in 1990. One of his books, Build a Better Burger, includes every winning recipe. Some past winners — and McNair's Louisiana roots — inspired the burger here.